August 17, 2016 by: Henry Sanderson in London and Andres Schipani in Bogotá

Bolivia has made progress in its aim to become the world’s biggest exporter of lithium with its first shipment of the world’s lightest metal to China.

The Salar de Uyuni salt flats in Bolivia where the lithium deposits lie

But the impoverished South American country still faces challenges if it is to set the global benchmark for the raw material used in smartphone and electric car batteries.

With a price tag of $70,000, the shipment of almost 10 tonnes of lithium carbonate has been seen by the market as more symbolic than profitable.

Bolivia’s salt flats hold the world’s largest potential resources of lithium and demand has surged in the past five years, with prices spiking over the past 12 months amid a supply shortage.

Almost all electric cars, such as the Nissan Leaf and Tesla Model S, use lithium-ion batteries because of their light weight and higher energy density.

However, Bolivia trails its neighbour Chile, as well as Australia, which have become the largest suppliers to battery makers in Asia. Argentina, another neighbour, is rapidly investing in its lithium industry.

The country’s estimated 9m tonnes of potential resources far exceed those of the US, China and Australia, according to the US Geological Survey. But Bolivia’s lithium deposits are more costly because they have three times the level of magnesium than Chile, which makes them more difficult to refine. The country’s salt flats also have a lower evaporation rate, according to analysts.

Robert Baylis, an analyst at the Roskill consultancy, said: “There’s potential there in terms of the resources but I would think it might be quite difficult to scale it up into anything large-scale without outside help. But it’s difficult for corporates in Bolivia because you can get your assets stripped off you.”

Last week Glencore, the commodity trader, said it would start arbitration against Bolivia over the nationalisation of its assets.

In 2008, when Evo Morales, the leftwing president, launched his plan to develop lithium, he made it clear he did not want simply to export the raw material. The country wanted “partners, not owners” to help it make batteries and cars.

Mr Morales’ government has held talks with French, Japanese and South Korean companies among others but little has happened. Analysts say Bolivia needs to clinch deals quickly to develop much-needed technology and gain market share.

With his eye on a multibillion-dollar industry, Mr Morales said in April that one day “Bolivia will set the price for lithium for the entire world”.

In the so-called lithium triangle of Chile, Argentina and Bolivia, the material is found in brine under the desert’s salt flats. The brine is pumped and allowed to evaporate in large ponds for several months and then refined into raw lithium carbonate which is mixed with other materials to constitute a battery cathode.

Lithium carbonate and potassium chloride are produced at a $19m pilot plant run by Comibol, the state-owned miner, on the edges of the Salar de Uyuni desert. The country aims to export 10,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate and 168,000 tonnes of potassium chloride by 2021.

Comibol said it expects to ship an additional 16 tonnes this year and intends to invest $790m in extracting evaporates in the next four years. It also hopes to export 5,000 tonnes of lithium cathodes from 2021.

Marcelo Castro, who this week stepped down as manager of Comibol’s Uyuni plant, said the shipment to China was a “reward for years of Bolivian efforts”. Alberto Echazú, the company’s head of evaporates, said Bolivia was “on the right path.”

...............
A Pre-Feasibility Study completed in early 2016 established Probable Mineral Reserve for the Sonora project of 2.1 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent. Bacanora said it expects to complete such study by summer.
.............

Sonora holds one of the world’s largest lithium resources and benefits from being both high grade and scalable. The project, which is located in an existing mining district and has excellent access to infrastructure, consists of 10 contiguous concessions covering 104,064 Ha and is located 190km NE of Hermosillo in northern Mexico. The Company has a 100% interest in the La Ventana concession and a 70% interest in Mexilit and Megalit.
..............

The above is based on a two phase open-pit mine and lithium carbonate processing facility with a life of over 20 years

Phase 1: 17,500 tonnes per year of battery-grade Li2CO3, for the first 2 yearsPhase 2: Expansion to 35,000 tonnes Li2CO3 per yearPotential to produce up to 50,000 tonnes per year of potassium sulphate (SOP, K2SO4) in the third year, for sale to the domestic Mexican fertiliser industry

Coal-rich Czech Republic is hoping to diversify its mining sector by taping into one of the hottest commodities of the decade: lithium.

Demand for the metal, frequently referred to as "white petroleum," is expected to triple by 2025, as it has become an irreplaceable component of rechargeable batteries used in high tech devices and electric cars.

And while global production of the metal grew by 14% last year, that wasn’t enough to meet demand, which caused prices to jump by 74% in December alone, according to London-based Benchmark Minerals Intelligence.

Banking on that growing need for lithium, a small ancient mining village, once famous for its tin and tungsten production, is hoping to attract investors to develop a recently found lithium deposit, considered the largest in Europe, Deutsche Welle reported.

Based on data from the Czech Geological Survey, the European country holds between 1.2 to 1.4 million tonnes of lithium, located mostly around the tiny village of Cinovec, on the border with Germany.

One company has already set its eyes on the prize. Australia's European Metals Holdings, or EMH, plans to open a mine in the area, which is expected to produce over 20,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate (the processed ore) a year.

Such amount would place the Czech Republic among the top five lithium producers in the world, the Associated Press reported. Currently, the top producers of the white metal are Australia, Chile, China and Argentina, in that order.

EMH has had an exclusive exploration license and the right to apply for a mining permit since 2014 when it acquired Czech exploration company Geomet, the first one to confirm the presence of lithium in the region.

Unlike most other lithium deposits in the world, the one in the Czech Republic is in an area with built-in, working infrastructure, which includes a railroad. It is also conveniently located close to car makers, most of which have launched or are planning to introduce electric vehicles.

The landlocked country could use a windfall brought by a potential lithium industry, as it continues to recover from a recession that hit the country between 2011 and 2013, the nation’s longest-ever.

Prices of lithium carbonate have roughly doubled since 2015, according to analysts at investment bank Liberum. Some fear, however, that a speculative bubble may take shape in the market, with more small-cap miners turning their attention to deposits.

The Guyanese Government has announced plans to place more focus on the mining of rare earth minerals in the coming year, particularly lithium.

According to Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman a survey will be carried out "to get a better sense of what exactly we have."

Last year, a permit was given to a Canadian company for prospecting of lithium.

"That company has started doing some drilling and has seen signs of lithium.
I believe they are now in the process of looking for financiers to go further," Trotman said.

The Canadian-based company, Guyana Strategic Metals (GSM) Incorporated that is operating in Region Sevenr signed an agreement earlier this year with an Australian company, Greenpower Energy to acquire interests in the exploration.

In the coming months, Greenpower Energy is expected to carry out an airborne geophysical survey to focus on the follow-up work.

Lithium was discovered in Guyana five years ago .

It is said to be the lightest known metal and is commonly used to make rechargeable batteries such as those found in cell phones.

The Australian government will invest in a lithium mine for the first time, as part of a wide-ranging effort to shore up power stability in a market increasingly dependent on variable wind and solar power.

The government said on Tuesday it would invest about A$20 million ($15 million) into Pilbara Minerals Ltd's Pilgangoora project in Western Australia, which will produce lithium concentrate, a key component in electric vehicles and batteries.

Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said it represented the conservative government's first investment in a mining project of its kind.

"Lithium is a vital component used in battery storage, which helps to support Australia's increasing use of renewable energy," the minister said in a statement.

The move comes as the government looks to prove it is being "technology neutral" in its efforts to beef up power supply, amid a battle over whether that should include subsidies for coal-fired power.

The investment is from the government's Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which took part in Pilbara Minerals' recently completed A$132 million bond issue.

The proceeds of the bond issue together with A$80 million raised in a share sale will underpin the A$234 million required for the project's first stage of development. Construction is expected to start in early 2018, Pilbara Minerals said.

Australia was the world's largest lithium producer in 2016, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

On the same day the government also awarded a A$2 million grant to Australian researchers developing ultra-thin, screen-printed batteries for use in both large-scale energy storage and in cheap, portable devices.

The Brisbane-based company behind the A$12 million project, Printed Energy, said the batteries would be flexible – printed in a roll-to-roll process like a newspaper – and could be adapted to almost any shape.

Major miner Rio Tinto and the Serbian government on Monday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to speed up development of Rio's giant deposit of jadarite, a mineral unique to Serbia that contains lithium.

Interest in lithium, used in batteries, is strong as electric vehicles gain popularity, but projects can take years to bring online.

Rio discovered the 136 million-tonne reserve of jadarite, named after the Jadar Valley, in 2004 and has invested $90 million so far on developing the mineral.

Rio Tinto says the project is expected to start producing in 2023 assuming the necessary approvals are obtained, which the MOU is designed to accelerate.

Rio Tinto Salt, Uranium and Borates Division Managing Director Simon Trott, who signed the agreement on behalf of the company, said it brought "Serbia and Rio Tinto closer to becoming a leading source of global lithium and borate production".

Minister of Mining and Energy Aleksandar Antic, who signed the accord on behalf of Serbia, said the deal would "speed up the activities related to the process of opening a mine and the beginning of the exploitation of lithium, which will have capital effect on the development of Serbia".

Jadarite contains borates, used in ceramics, fertilisers and other chemical compounds, as well as lithium.

Rio Tinto said it expected to make a final investment decision and start construction in 2020 and then the first production, based on a processing technology developed by Rio, is expected to commence in 2023.

Claims that Cornwall is sitting on a multibillion-pound lithium bonanza are due to be tested after a start-up ­project that plans to drill for the metal raised £1m from a trio of experienced mining investors.

Cornish Lithium aims to extract the resource, which is in increasing demand for batteries, from hot underground salt water. Its new investors include Norwegian financier Peter Smedvig, founder of Smedvig Capital, whose net worth has been estimated at more than £900m.

The others are Chris von Christierson, an ex-director of Goldfields, and Keith Liddell, a metallurgist and former CEO of Aquarius Platinum.

They have put up cash to explore a 15-mile stretch of land where Cornish Lithium secured extraction rights ­earlier this year.

Jeremy Wrathall, chief executive, said the firm would also tap the expertise of its new investors. “We assessed a number of offers but the most important thing was the experience of the people and their ability to follow their money,” Mr Wrathall said. Cornish Lithium will use the funding to collate historic data on hot brines in Cornwall and confirm its targets for drilling. It will then look to raise around £4m to fund its drilling programme in about a year’s time, possibly through a listing on London’s junior Aim market.

Mr Wrathall hopes a boom in electric cars will drive demand for lithium. He said the project was “potentially very strategic for the UK”, adding that recent news around electric cars – such as the Government’s pledge to end sales of petrol vehicles by 2040 – had provoked a surge of interest from ­investors.

“This project will have a low environmental impact and will ­produce a metal which is highly beneficial to the economy as we go toward a zero-emission future,” he said.

Providing it secures permits, Cornish Lithium will drill to a depth of between 500m and 1,000m to tap the brine, before pumping the water out and extracting the lithium in a processing plant.

Mr Liddell said Cornish Lithium had the potential to be a “very significant player in the lithium industry in the UK and Europe”.

Bacanora to complete Sonora lithium project feasibility study this year

Cecilia Jamasmie | Aug. 24, 2017

Lithium exploration and development company Bacanora Minerals said Thursday it expects the feasibility study at its Sonora lithium project in Mexico to be completed by the end of the year.

Finalizing the report would be the fourth major milestone achieved by the company in just two years. In 2015, the firm and its joint-venture partner Rare Earth Minerals signed a conditional agreement with Tesla Motors (NASDAQ: TSLA) to supply the electric cars and energy storage products company with lithium hydroxide from the Sonora project. In May last year, the company secured a $11 million investment from Blackrock, and this April, it inked a long-term supply deal with Japan’s Hanwa Corporation that will see the Tokyo-based trader acquire up to 100% of the output coming from Sonora.

A Pre-Feasibility Study completed in early 2016 established Probable Mineral Reserve for the Sonora project of 2.1 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent.

The definitive feasibility study focuses on a two-phase open pit mine and lithium carbonate processing facility with a life of over 20 years.

Phase one will see Bacanora process 17,500 tonnes per year of battery-grade lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) for the first two years. It will then ramp up to phase two where it will process 35,000 tonnes of Li2CO3 each year.

According to the company, while expenditure at Sonora may be higher than brine deposits in Chile, the length of time to produce lithium carbonate should be considerably shorter and Sonora's operating expenditure is expected to be higher than brine deposits in Chile, the length of time to produce lithium carbonate and the operating costs should be considerably shorter.